Research Paper Volume 15, Issue 7 pp 2433—2449

Figure 1. Experimental timeline and confirmation of lentiviral transfection and upregulation of SR expression in mPFC. (A) Experimental timeline illustrating details of experiments. Rats underwent surgery for lentiviral delivery into the mPFC and waited five weeks, to permit sufficient viral infection, before engaging in behavioral training on the attentional set shift task (AST) or electrophysiological recordings. Following AST, all rats were euthanized, had their tissue collected, and processed for immunohistochemistry (IHC). (B) Viral infection, represented as GFP+ expression, targeted the mPFC, which includes the cingulate (Cg), prelimbic (PLC), and infralimbic (ILC) cortices. (C) For rats injected with LV-SR (N = 7), viral infection (green, GFP) significantly overlapped with CaMKII+ cells (red; 52%). In contrast, rats injected with LV-GFP (N = 9), displayed limited overlap of GFP- (green) and CaMKII-positive cells (red). (D) Additional slices were evaluated for SR expression (red), and (E) based on further quantification (average of 4–7 slices/rat; individual rat’s average represented as single data point) showed that LV-SR significantly increased SR levels in the mPFC where the virus (GFP represented in green) was expressed. Data represented as mean ± SEM. ^**p < 0.01.